


The Vongola Famiglia's Guide to the Ultimate Summer Vacation

by NatRoze



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Coming of Age, Developing Relationship, Epic Destinies, F/F, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Gender Identity, Girl Power, M/M, Multi, Post-Canon, Summer Vacation, The power of friendship, canon is the ingredients i am the blender
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 18:11:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15321318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NatRoze/pseuds/NatRoze
Summary: Two years post-canon, the Vongola Guardians and associated hangers-on, girlfriends, siblings, and Sawada Household freeloaders take a vacation to Italy (read: get shipped off to magic mafia boot camp courtesy of Reborn) for the summer.Probably, thinks Tsuna, this means there's a threat on the horizon that we haven't heard about yet, but Reborn Knows Things. Getting his guardians to truly trust each other before that threat arrives is like herding cats. Cats with knives, and lasers, and inhuman strength.Probably, thinks Kyoko, this is the best chance she'll ever get to teach herself to use the Dying Will Flames, because she's done being a damsel in distress. It's her turn to fight, she's recruiting a team of her own, and she might not know it yet, but she's got cosmic fate watching her back.





	The Vongola Famiglia's Guide to the Ultimate Summer Vacation

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't a chatfic 98% of the time, it just starts that way, in case you're one of those folks that's super turned off by chatfics.
> 
> This is a complete revamping of a fic I once tried to pull off back in 2011, back when I was young and not yet capable of fully realizing the idea. It's deeply self-indulgent. It's going to be long. I don't follow update schedules and you shouldn't anticipate me even trying to. Somewhere in my heart I'm pretty sure this will be my magnum opus. I am going to finish this fic with my dying fucking will.
> 
> If it becomes relevant (which it might) I'll add tags and list warnings in the notes before each chapter that said warnings are relevant to. I'll also add more tags as I sort out what I'm doing with ships in this, and also character tags as they cease to be confusing and/or spoilers.

NOT THE MAFIA DISCORD   


∨ TEXT CHANNELS  
**#vongola-family-general**   
**#memefia**   
   #mission-control   
   #hard-feelings   
**#pics-of-hibari-sleeping-in-weird-places**

ONLINE – 5  
   baseballfan80 @  baseballfan80    
   EXTREME @  lionpunchinist    
   not the boss @  sawada27tsuna    
   realmystery @  realmystery    
   The Best Right Hand Man @  smokingbomb 

OFFLINE – 3  
   chrome @  realmistery    
   Hibari Kyouya @  HibariKyouya    
   Its Ya Boy Lambo @  10yearbazinga  **  
**

**#vongola-family-general**

––––––––––––––––––––– July 13, 201x –––––––––––––––––––––

**not the boss** **  
** Hey everyone   
Um, just so we’re clear on the details, this “vacation” at dino-san’s is the whole summer, so pack for the entire break cos we’ll be there for a month   
Our flight is a red-eye to rome after the last day of class. All paid, don’t worry bout it, thank dino-san later.

**baseballfan80** **  
** wow this is super nice of him! i cant wait   
do we get tickets from you or reborn or who now

**not the boss**   
I’m holding onto the tickets cos god knows you people will lose them or eat them or blow them up or something

**EXTREME**   
WAIT WHAT VACATION WHAT   
WHEN   
CAN I STILL TRAIN FOR MATCHES WHIEL WERER THERE I CANT MISS MY ROUTINE   
IS IT HOT IN ITALY   
NEVER MIND IG ONDT CARE LETS DO THIS SAWADA

**not the boss**   
Also uh. It’s not just us going, like bianchi and fuuta and the girls are allowed to come so like. If yknow.   
Vongola stuff comes up on this trip, put it in #mission-control and it STAYS in mission control we dont talk about it at the breakfast table   
@lionpunchinist i’m talking to you here

**The Best Right Hand Man** **  
** SOUNDS GREAT TENTH!! CANT WAIT TO SPEND THE SUMMER WITH YOU   
and also the rest of you monsters i guess

**baseballfan80** **  
** haha great to hear youre excited too gokudera! maybe we can be roommates! :D

**The Best Right Hand Man**   
OVER MY DEAD BODY   
IM ROOMING WITH THE TENTH

**realmystery**   
Dead body? That can be arranged.   
Incidentally, I’m not positive I’m legally allowed in Italy at present, Tsunayoshi. Is that going to be remedied?

**The Best Right Hand Man** **  
** get bent mukuro we all know why youre agreeing to this trip

**realmystery**   
;)

**not the boss**   
Oh god dammit. Um uh lemme message dino-san that’s not supposed to be a thing anymore

**realmystery**   
;) ;) ;)

**The Best Right Hand Man** **  
** dude cut that shit out whats ;) even supposed to   
yknow forget it i dont wanna know   
haaaaa i wonder what reborn-san has planned for us i bet its important!! im gonna start packing right now~~

**baseballfan80** **  
** ah, we don’t leave for a week though? Lol @  smokingbomb 

⭑⭒⭑⭒⭑

On the afternoon of July 20th, the plane lands, and Kyoko exits blearily down the jetway behind her brother and Haru. Outside the floor-to-ceiling airport windows, the weather is gorgeous, bright, and completely non-conducive to sleep, which is what Kyoko tried and failed to do for the entire flight. She rubs her eyes futilely and leans her head on Haru’s shoulder as they walk towards the baggage claim. All the signs and store names are in Italian, sometimes followed by English. It’s hard to believe, but they really are in Italy. It’s Kyoko’s first time abroad; despite the circumstances, she wants to try to enjoy it.

A week and a half ago, Dino Cavallone had shown up in Namimori to invite “the Vongola Guardians-yes-even-Mukuro, their are-you-girlfriends-or-just-girl-friends, sisters, and of _course_ Reborn” to come stay at his villa in Italy for the summer.

Of course, Kyoko supposed, he meant the _Cavallone famiglia’s_ villa. And presumably, there’s a Top-Secret Mafia Agenda behind the trip. There always is. Part of Kyoko is relieved she knows this about her brother and friends; a friendship is always more harmonious when there aren’t big secrets between parts of it. The rest of her is a mix of concern and resignation.

When Tsuna, Ryohei, and the others disappear for days on end, Kyoko spends about a third of her time commiserating with Haru and sometimes Chrome (depending if they need both Mist Guardians along or not) about the fact that most of their friends aren’t around to hang out with. The second third of her time is devoted to her and Chrome reassuring Haru that _they’ll come back safe, they always come back safe_ , and pokerfacing her own way through the entire experience; Haru’s emotional vulnerability towards the situation has always been more tenuous, but it’s not like Kyoko isn’t scared too. But someone’s gotta put on the brave face.

Kyoko watches sleepily as Yamamoto and her brother physically restrain Gokudera from getting in a fight with the Customs officials as they attempt to navigate the teetering language barriers surrounding Gokudera’s duffel bag full of dynamite, black powder and several jars of something clear and viscous (“What’s that?” Kyoko whispers to Haru; “Napalm?” replies Rokudo Mukuro, completely unprompted). Eventually, Tsuna is forced to produce his passport, upon which his father had at some point stamped a sort of official Vongola Famiglia seal of approval, and the customs officials dealing with them all stammer and scatter, leaving one slow-to-react and increasingly-flustered representative behind to contend with the magic teen mafia squad.

To Kyoko’s left, Mukuro fails to stifle a giggle. The sole remaining Customs officer, now fearfully checking _all_ their luggage if only for the sake of knowing what’s coming into the country, takes one look inside Lambo's candy-purple suitcase and makes a sound like a spooked bird. Mukuro stops trying to hide it and laughs outright. Kyoko gets up on her tiptoes to try and see what’s in the suitcase; her brother scowls and not-so-casually steps in front of her.

The final third of Kyoko’s time when the Vongola Famiglia is out on business is spent wishing she was allowed to join them. This point of contention has been ever-present in the two years, six months, and twelve days since they returned from the future (not that Kyoko keeps count, necessarily), and the cause of many fights between Kyoko and her brother, several between her and Gokudera, and even a couple I’m-being-polite- _because_ -I’m-mad-at-you not-fights between Kyoko and Yamamoto. There’s no reason Kyoko—and Haru, too—should be barred from joining the Vongola. Bianchi does mafia things. Chrome does them. _I-Pin_ , a literal seven-year-old, does them. Why not Kyoko and Haru?

She and Tsuna only got into it once, and it ended with her and Haru not speaking to him for a month. They had an unspoken agreement to never bring it up with him again.

But Kyoko is ever-determined to be a good friend and a good girlfriend, despite the exclusion, and refuses to let her boyfriend and her brother leave her at home when they’re going abroad for mafia nonsense. What if they need her help? What if they need moral support?

_Worse_ , what if it really is just a normal, non-mafia summer vacation in Italy with all their friends, and by not going she would be missing all the fun?

Funny how in the end, an epic case of FOMO is what gets Sasagawa Kyoko over her irritation with being left out of the Famiglia and onto a plane around the world.

As they drag their luggage out of the airport, Kyoko supposes she might be just a _little_ bit bitter if it’s a mafia vacation, though. Exploring gorgeous Italian hill towns and relaxing by the pool at a beautiful countryside villa will leave a bittersweet taste in her mouth if it’s just her and Haru, babysitting the kiddos, while Tsuna and the boys (and Chrome) go off to exude egregious amounts of hypermasculine posturing on their own, expecting to come back beat up and exhausted to a meal home-made in Dino-san’s inevitably massive and well-stocked mafia villa kitchen.

(Kyoko used to like to cook. Once, Bianchi told her the _real_ origin of her Poison Cooking was her father’s mobster goons telling her one too many times to “get back in the kitchen.” She decided she wanted to make sure they never wanted her back in there again.)

Outside the baggage claim, several large cars with the windows blacked out are waiting for them at the curb. Kyoko recognizes several of Dino-san’s men-in-suits from the previous times he’s visited them in Namimori. They’re all standing around trying to look as casual as possible despite clearly being dressed like a stereotypical western mob movie. One of them holds up a whiteboard sign reading “Vongola” in a fairly-decent imitation of the actual valets and limo drivers (all of whom are standing as far away as they can while still waiting for their own clients).

The driver of one of the cars visibly checks the glove compartment for his gun and doesn’t bother to lock it after. Kyoko sighs and gets in the car anyway.

The drive isn’t as long as she expects, although she does snooze against the window through most of it. She awakes about fifteen minutes from their arrival, somewhere out in the Italian countryside, and watches the rolling golden hills rush by outside the tinted windows.

They pull up the dirt road driveway in front of the Cavallone villa, a gorgeous stonework structure with ornate columns, an open outdoor porch, window balconies, and six men with AK-47s standing guard at the main entrance.

Kyoko grits her teeth behind her smile. She’s going to enjoy this summer break if it kills her.

⭑⭒⭑⭒⭑

They had convinced their parents it was a study abroad program.

“That sounds just wonderful, dears!” Kyoko and Ryohei’s mother had gushed (for the thirty seconds of time she allotted herself to take out of her morning routine before work). “What a lucky way to spend your summer break! I didn’t even know that school of yours did study abroads.”

“Is that part of your tuition?” their father had grumbled into his oatmeal.

“Absolutely, yes, definitely.” Ryohei was never a good liar, but he had been introduced to a tactic that worked for him: if he strategically timed these sorts of conversations during breakfast, when their father was nose-deep in the newspaper and their mother was scrambling all over the place preparing for work, Ryohei could stick his upper body halfway into the fridge and pretend to be rummaging around for breakfast so nobody could see his abysmal poker face. Gokudera-kun had jokingly come up with the idea, not expecting Ryohei to try it. It’d worked for two years so far.

Kyoko sipped her orange juice in silence while their mother had gushed about her children “growing up to become responsible global citizens, this ought to teach you some good perspective on the rest of the world!”

Their father just wanted them to bring him back some homemade salami, which Reborn later helpfully informed them would likely not make it back through Customs without assistance. Assistance Kyoko was sure they would get quite easily, in comparison with the contents of anyone else's luggage on the trip.

“I’m so glad both of your classes will be going, dear.” Their mother planted a matte-lipsticked kiss atop Kyoko’s head on her way out the door. “Your brother gets into enough trouble at home; who _knows_ what he’ll get up to in a foreign country?”

⭑⭒⭑⭒⭑

Dino’s men drag everyone’s luggage all the way up to the third floor and install them down a hallway in a bright, well-lit, and expensively-furnished series of rooms. Kyoko and Haru’s is at the end of the hall, with a huge lace-draped canopy bed. Kyoko pays very little attention to it, exhausted as she is from the plane ride; as soon as the suits leave, she lays down and sleeps through the entire afternoon, fully-dressed and not even bothering with the blankets. She doesn’t wake up until half-past-five, by which time any excitement of their arrival has died down, and the villa house is quiet enough that Kyoko can hear birds outside.

On the other side of the canopy bed, Haru’s left her a note explaining that she, Yamamoto, and the little kids have gone exploring the Cavallone famiglia’s extensive acreage of property ( _Dino-san says they’ve got a gazebo and a summer house and a pool, eeeeeeee!_ ) and that they’ll have a welcome dinner at 6:45 pm. Kyoko’s suitcase is propped up against a fancy lacquered dresser; Haru’s is on its side at the foot of a cushioned windowsill loveseat. Kyoko pulls back the curtains and, with a bit of effort, pries the window open to get some air into the room and cool down the overwhelming late-afternoon heat.

Visible out the window, in addition to the roof of the pool house, a distant building that might be the summer house, and the rolling grass hills dyed gold in the sun, Kyoko sees a small parking lot of identical black SUVs with tinted windows.

_This is going to be a_ great _summer vacation_ , she insists, and hopes she isn’t jinxing herself.

Kyoko tosses her hoodie on the loveseat and changes into a sundress. Upon investigating, she discovers a bathroom attached to her’s and Haru’s room, with a second door on the other side linking it to a second bedroom. This other bedroom apparently houses the two Vongola Mist Guardians, if the presence of Mukuro _in_ the bathroom is any indication.

The more flamboyant of the two Mist Guardians is practically draped over the bathroom counter in an effort to get closer to the mirror, humming quietly while he fidgets with a liquid eyeliner pen. Beside him on the counter is a very ornate, sharp dagger, the hilt shaped like a snake eating a pitch-black marble.

Quietly, Kyoko steps backwards out of the bathroom, hoping Mukuro hasn’t caught sight of her in the mirror. It’s not that she’s _afraid_ of him, necessarily; he’s never done anything directly to threaten her. But it’s hard _not_ to find a twice-escaped ex-convict ostensibly bent on some form of either world domination or destruction, who became a mind-controlling mass murderer at the tender age of ten, _somewhat_ unsettling.

Outside her room, Kyoko meanders down the wood-floored hallway. She peeks into each of the rooms along the way, to see where each of her friends are staying. Bianchi waves at her from half-inside her room’s wardrobe, where she appears to be organizing her clothes by color, but aside from her and Mukuro, nobody seems to be around.

Well, Hibari-san might be, but his bedroom door—if the impeccably hand-written post-it note stuck on it reading “International Offices of the Namimori High School Disciplinary Committee” is any indication—is shut, and Kyoko is absolutely not knocking to find out. Kyoko wonders what they had to do to convince him to come along.

(It occurs to her, quite belatedly, that she’d spent upwards of thirteen hours on a plane in a sealed, enclosed small space with Hibari trapped in an inescapable crowd and survived, and she shudders a little.)

If exploring Dino-san’s gorgeous sandstone villa tells Kyoko anything about the Mafia, it’s that the astronomically high lack of job security at least comes with an equally astronomically high paycheck. The entire complex—for it turns out that behind the villa is a pool house, a stable full of real horses, a gazebo, and a smaller building that one of the Cavallone men informs her used to be servants’ quarters back in the day and now functions as an armory—is spectacularly-decorated. Ornate full-room rugs, lacquered antique furniture, renaissance art, dozens of expensive trinkets and ornaments and statuettes. It’s not distasteful, either; whoever was in charge of decorating the place clearly knew a thing or two about design. If it weren't for the gun-toting men in suits, they could rent it out for honeymoons.

Kyoko gets lost among the arching hallways and open-air corridors four times on her quest to find the kitchen. Along the way, she stumbles upon a library; a high-ceilinged room lined in decorative wallpaper housing a massive grand piano; an indoor gym featuring her brother on a treadmill screaming at nothing; and at least three different cats who all seem quite pleased to let her scritch them behind the ears.

Even if the mafia might ruin part of the trip, this will be a pretty amazing place to spend the summer. She can get behind spitefully suntanning on an ivy-entwined balcony for a month.

Or she can get behind sneaking into the armory and teaching herself how to shoot. Maybe.

In the kitchen she finds Tsuna, sitting alone at the counter island on a stool tall enough that his feet don’t reach the floor. Quietly, Kyoko pulls out the stool beside him and perches to his left; the right is a spot she’s gotten used to subconsciously leaving available for Gokudera.

“I hope this is a fun trip for everyone,” Tsuna sighs in lieu of greeting. He fidgets with an apple in the fruit bowl atop the counter.

“Me too,” Kyoko replies, pointedly. Tsuna leans his head on his crossed arms atop the counter; Kyoko matches him with a pout. He’s got that look on his face that means he has something he wants to say, but he doesn’t want to say it because he’s afraid to upset her. _This is a business trip_ , she thinks grimly.

“Dino-san has a whole swimming pool in his backyard,” says Tsuna, which is clearly not what he really wants to talk about. “I’m jealous. And I didn’t bring a swimsuit, I’ll have to go into…” he unlocks his phone and checks Google Maps, “Uh, Florence, I guess. To get swim trunks. Yeah.”

“It is quite nice here,” she agrees, and describes to him the beautiful rooms and sights she’s already stumbled across.

“Hayato-kun might like that piano,” he muses. It'd taken Kyoko awhile to notice Gokudera and Tsuna technically reaching a first-name basis, because they were still trying to break Gokudera of the habit of calling him _Tenth_. “I don’t know if I’ve ever actually heard him play, y’know. We should ask him.”

Now he’s well and truly avoiding the subject. Kyoko leans back in her seat and stretches. “Alright, Tsuna-kun. How much of this trip are we really going to get to hang out together?”

At the very least, Tsuna has the good sense to look guilty. _Probably very little, then_ . She forces a smile onto her face nonetheless, but she’s honest enough that she lets it be a sad one. “I know you’ve probably got, y’know, Vongola stuff to attend to. I was just hoping we might get to go on at least _one_ fancy Italian food date while we’re here.”

“I’m sure we’ll have time for _one_ in the schedule…” He gives her a sheepish half-smile. Kyoko debates trying to pay Reborn to take a hike. She wonders how much it’d cost. Instead of complaining, she takes Tsuna’s hand on the counter, and subtly nudges her fingers between his.

This used to be exciting.

This used to be _fun_ , to date one of her best friends, who also happened to be one of the coolest people she knew. Tsuna was – _is_ – sweet, and (occasionally) brave, and sincere. He cares about his friends and family. He’s not a bad person. He hasn’t done anything wrong, and as far as Kyoko is concerned he’s still one of her closest, most trusted friends.

But this used to be _exciting_ . It’s not anymore. It really doesn’t even feel like _like-liking_ him anymore, not in any way that feels significant. Now it’s….

Well, it _is_ , and that’s supposed to be enough.

⭑⭒⭑⭒⭑

Dinner is a surreal affair. Apparently the second part will be outside, and include a barbecue. But before that is the initial ceremonial welcome-to-Italy-Tenth-Vongola-Boss part. This involves the Guardians and associated teenage-and-child vacationers feeling severely underdressed in shorts, flip flops, and summer clothes, while all of the Cavallone and Vongola men-in-suits drink a toast to the health of a bunch of precocious, often rude, sometimes morally-disinclined, terrifically lethal high schoolers.

Dino-san says something in Italian; Reborn rudely translates into Japanese, and Kyoko pays little attention to the details of the grandeur. The suit brigade applauds and begins the long-held adult tradition of mingling around a ballroom with champagne glasses and teeny hors d'oeuvre plates.

At some point during the toasting-and-ballroom-mingling process, Bianchi recalls that the Italian drinking age is sixteen and tries to foist Gokudera-kun’s first legal sip of wine on him, which he wisely refuses on the principle that it’s Bianchi. Nonetheless she’s kick-started something terrible with the knowledge. Yamamoto shyly takes a sip, followed by Haru and Tsuna, all of whom in succession make faces like they’ve just swallowed lemons. Hibari takes one look at the progression of the evening, eyes narrowing with the popping of every wine bottle, and makes an even-hastier-than-normal exit. Mukuro smiles a horrid little smile and pounds a wine glass like a shot. Ryohei tries a sip of something and gets a curious look in his eyes; Kyoko feels the long-distance pang of concern as her mother’s voice sweetly saying “keep him out of trouble” echoes in her head.

The minute the welcome party moves outside to the barbecue area in Dino’s sprawling back patio and yard, Kyoko’s concern turns to dread as Ryohei hooks an arm around Dino and says, conspiratorially, “Extreme drinking contest?”

Despite _anyone’s_ better judgment and certainly despite expectations of Dino being an Adult, he raises an eyebrow and holds out a hand for Ryohei to shake. “I’ll drink you under the table if it’ll teach you the meaning of restraint, kiddo.”

Kyoko’s dread metamorphosizes into something nameless and existential.  She forces herself to look away from the imminent train wreck of impaired judgement and terrible hair decisions, and gets herself a plateful of ravioli. Pasta can only improve things.

“Kyoko!” Haru waves her over once she’s got her food, and she skirts around the lawn to join Haru and Chrome, who are sitting with their feet dangling in the shallow end of Dino’s gaudily-tiled pool. She dips her feet in the water and stares resolutely at the bottom of the pool, which sports a mosaic of fish-tailed horses. She does not watch Dino toss her brother a beer can, two, three. She really does not.

The water in the pool is refreshing in contrast with the Italian summer weather. Haru steals an olive off Chrome’s plate, and throws it as hard as she can at Gokudera on the other side of the pool, hitting him square in the side of the head. His overblown reaction is funny enough to even startle a giggle out of Chrome. For awhile, they eat in silence while the party works itself into full swing around them. The older members of the Cavallone and Vongola retinue take to the porch chairs and mingle around the hors d’oeuvres table; the children run amok under everyone’s feet; Tsuna and his squad alternate between chilling around the pool and occasionally watching in open concern as Ryohei and Dino stare each other down across a glass-topped table and continue to pound beers.

As soon as Haru’s mouth isn’t full anymore, she begins detailing a full layout of all the interesting parts of the property she and Yamamoto had discovered earlier.

“The summer house! Guys, the summer house is _so_ pretty, it’s all wicker furniture and rustic chic and it’s got a swinging bench and we _have_ to do a camp-out there one night! Maybe even just the three of us, and like, Bianchi and I-Pin. Girls’ night out campfire party! We can do nails and watch movies and talk shit and none of the boys are allowed in, aaaaaa!”

“That sounds nice,” Kyoko agrees. A night purposefully spent away from the boys might be nice. Especially if they just so happen to plan it at the same time as the inevitable mafia shenanigans. Kyoko might not feel as left out if she’s busy getting a pedicure and talking about hot movie stars and…

...and now that she’s staring at the little building just across the yard, she _definitely_  wants to sneak into the armory and see if they have any spare magic mafia flame rings, and maybe she could go out over the hill to the summer house to test them, where none of the boys could see her.

It takes her a moment of (relative) silence to realize Haru and Chrome are staring at her. She stares back, brow furrowed in confusion. “What?” she says. “Do I have something on my face?”

“You totally said that out loud,” Haru informs her. Kyoko blinks.

“Oh.”

“I didn’t know you like, still thought about that.” Haru flops backward across the ground, hands fidgeting with the rim of her paper plate. “I like, kinda made myself give up on it after, y’know.”

After she and Haru couldn’t speak to Tsuna for a month. The only, and worst, fight in their entire friendship.

“But like, not like I _wanted_ to, eep!” Haru sits immediately back up, scrambling to keep from accidentally launching her plate of ravioli into the pool. “Like, I guess… it’s _stressful_ , and I don’t like any of it, and I kinda wish none of it were happening. Almost more than I wish I was a part of it, sometimes. Yikes, IDK.”

“I still think about it,” Kyoko admits. “Pretty much every time they have another big, y’know, _event_ . I think, ‘If they let me learn, I could stand and fight _with_ them.’ Giving up feels like not giving myself enough credit.” Kyoko twists the edges of her paper plate in frustration.

“Aaaah, no, yeah, like, if I could do it without like, all the boys getting pissed as heck, I’d just – _WHAM,_ go for it, y’know! But also like, the idea of fighting like that all the time is scary. But I… guess I still wanna too, y’know. I want the _chance_.”

“Yeah… Like it still feels unfair that they don’t even let us try. It’s not their job to protect us. We should be able to stand up for ourselves.”

Chrome looks back and forth between the two of them, and after a moment of hesitation rests a delicate hand on Kyoko’s knee. “If you want to learn how to use Dying Will Flames, you could always ask _me_ ,” she murmurs.

Kyoko blinks. In unison, she and Haru turn to look at Chrome, eyebrows raised and eyes alight.

(Chrome immediately withers under the direct attention and nearly slides halfway into the pool, but the three of them giggle about it later when they finish eating and bring their empty plates back toward the villa. )

“We can’t just go about this willy-nilly,” Kyoko points out as Haru loads up a new paper plate with cannolis and fruit tarts. “Especially not where _they_ can hear us.” She nods in the direction of the boys.

At one of the outdoor tables, Tsuna is steadily losing to Dino and Reborn at poker. By the other side of the pool, a probably-drunk and impressively giggly Ryohei has somehow teamed up with (of all people) an equally-tipsy and _scarily_ giggly Mukuro to try to throw Gokudera into the pool.

Haru shoves an entire cream puff in her mouth, takes one look at the boys, and snorts. “Not that, like, they’re listening.”

The girls giggle at that. Gokudera eventually loses his grip on the planter he’d anchored himself to, and Ryohei and Mukuro grab him by the arms and legs each to toss him into the pool. At the last second, Mukuro twirls away and trips Ryohei, sending him into the water along with Gokudera, drenching everyone in a ten-foot radius as they’re caught in the splash zone.

Across the pool, he catches the girls’ eyes, and bows dramatically. Behind him, Yamamoto holds up one finger in front of his mouth in the universal sign for _shhh_ , and just as Mukuro straightens back up, Yamamoto shoves him, too, into the water, with a decidedly undignified screech.

“Actually,” Haru amends, “we could totally talk about this right now and not a single one of ‘em would notice. Let’s make a plan.”

⭑⭒⭑⭒⭑

At four in the morning the next day, Kyoko’s jet lag and excitement get the better of her. It’s not every day that you and your two best friends intend to embark on a secret mission to become magical mafia vigilantes. She’s got the resolve. She _must_ have flame powers, even if she has no idea which kind yet – and any of them sound thrilling. She’ll learn to use them, and learn to fight, and maybe one day it’ll be _her_ saving _Tsuna_ instead of the other way around. At the very least, nobody will be saving Sasagawa Kyoko anymore, that’s for sure. Kyoko’s heart pounds so loud in anticipation that she’s sure she’ll wake Haru, curled around a mountain of pillows on the other side of the bed with her hair fanning out in a wild halo of soft brown.

She dresses in a tanktop and linen shorts, grabs her phone, and sneaks out of the bedroom. The grand Cavallone villa is mostly dark in the pre-sunrise, and completely silent save for the men-in-suits on patrol outside the windows. Kyoko theorizes that if she can dodge the patrols, she could get a pretty good peek at the armory door before anyone else is awake, and then spend the rest of the morning until breakfast doing youtube yoga in the pavilion out back of the villa. Whatever she finds out about the armory, she’ll let Chrome know, and then most likely the three of them will return at midnight and Chrome will create an illusory key or something. That was the gist of the plan they came up with at the party, barring any need for drastic improvisation.

She makes it about halfway down the stairs when she catches the smell of something salty cooking. From the kitchen comes the sound of clattering pots and pans knocking against each other, followed by a quiet and unmistakable voice complaining, “Stupid – frying pan – bite you to death.”

In the kitchen, Hibari Kyouya is, for the first time in Kyoko’s memory, out of uniform in a soft black t-shirt and fitted grey jeans, angrily pouting, and diligently preparing to fry an entire carton of eggs. Propped up on the counter next to him, along with a stack of pans and kitchenware that have clearly been knocked off their hooks, is somebody’s iPad, visibly displaying a wikihow tutorial for how to operate a gas stove.

Kyoko stifles a giggle.

“What are you doing back there?”

Kyoko jumps. Hibari tilts his head over his shoulder to fix her with a flat stare. Kyoko stares back; Hibari maintains eye contact as he cracks an egg with his bare hand and drops it unceremoniously into the pan, shell and all. She tries very hard to maintain a poker face. Possibly Hibari needs a tutorial not on how to operate a gas stove, but how to cook like a real live human being.

She suspects it occurs to them both at the same time that they are on the other side of the world from Namimori and he thus has no functional jurisdiction over her, and she can be wherever in the villa she wants. She also suspect it dawns on them both at once that he’s about to be incredibly irritated about this sudden personal authority vacuum for the rest of the summer.

Hibari’s nose wrinkles in distaste. He grabs another egg; this one he cracks by simply dropping it into the pan from two feet up and watching it smack.

Kyoko watches him go through the motions of breaking several eggs in increasingly creative and inadvertently-threatening ways. “Well, I will, um, leave you to that, then,” she says, and then immediately scrambles out of the room. This might not be Namimori, but Hibari is still the loosest of cannons even outside his home turf. Kyoko hopes he’s too distracted keeping his unfortunately crunchy breakfast from burning to come bite her to death, and she skitters out the door of the back porch.

It’s cool out this early in the morning, and the dew is refreshing on Kyoko’s bare feet as she passes the pool and tiptoes across the lawn toward the armory building. Nobody appears to be patrolling this side of the villa, at least not presently, so Kyoko makes her way unquestioned to the distant other side of the yard. On her tiptoes, she peers inside the armory; just on the other side of the windows, steel panels have been installed, blocking her view.

“Hmph!” Kyoko frowns. She jiggles the doorknob; predictably, it’s locked. A quick check around the back confirms that indeed this is the only door into the building, and all the windows are barred with steel.

“What _are_ you up to, Sasagawa?”

Kyoko startles and trips on the doorstep of the armory as she circles back around to the front. Standing about ten feet behind her in the grass, pants cuffed to prevent them getting damp, is Hibari and his unfortunate egg experiment (only slightly charred on one side). He stares her down and takes a particularly vicious bite; with his mouth full, he adds, “And don’t try to lie. My counter-illusionist training has taught me to smell falsehoods.”

_I’m sure it has_ , thinks Kyoko, but her self-preservation instincts are firmly in place between the thought and her mouth. Instead, she gives him a half-truth. “I couldn’t sleep, and I wanted to explore. I wanted to see what’s inside but it’s locked.”

“Then it’s clearly none of your business.”

Kyoko purses her lips. It is four forty-five in the morning and her higher processing has not yet woken up. Self-preservation instincts or otherwise, Kyoko’s ideas are happening faster than her second thoughts. Some part of her is stuck on a metaphor about wanting to make omelets and having to break eggs. Perhaps this is what possesses her to say, “Then you don’t know what’s in there either? I didn’t think Dino-san would keep things hidden from you and Tsuna-kun.”

It’s fascinating, watching the gears turn. Hibari’s forkful of egg freezes halfway to his mouth and his lips purse into the thinnest of lines. While he’d mellowed out somewhat in high school (possibly due to having the venue of the occasional mafia skirmish available to vent his bottomless rage into), Hibari’s face contorts into something more akin to the axe-crazy cold fury he wore in middle school.

Quite gently, he lays his fork on the side of his plate, and hands the plate to Kyoko.

“Hold this,” he says. It’s not a request. Kyoko takes the plate, and steps back about fifteen feet while Hibari produces his trademark tonfas from somewhere indeterminate on his person. (Kyoko has long since learned to stop wondering how Hibari operates as a person. She’s pretty sure he would break the laws of physics if they inconvenienced him enough; wondering where he puts his weapons and how many he has on him at any given time is pretty pointless.)

Hibari makes disturbingly short work of the door. Somewhere in the main building of the villa, an alarm begins to blare, breaking  the early morning peace. Hibari yanks the shattered remains of the armory door off its hinges and stalks into the building. After a moment, Kyoko follows him in, quite unnoticed.

It’s exactly what she’d have expected from a mafia armory, and then some: the walls are lined with all manner of guns, knives, bludgeoning implements, and even the occasional sword. One rack is devoted entirely to whips, Dino’s weapon of choice. The center of the wide, open room is taken up by a series of glass display cases, well-organized and filled with glittery crystal rings and a handful of box weapons, as well as some quite ornate jewelry that reminds Kyoko of the bits and bangles Tsuna-kun and his group wear.

She catches the glint of Hibari’s Vongola Gear bracelet around his wrist in the thin light filtering through the dust from the rubble. Hurriedly, she slips her hand under the lid of one of the display cases and fishes out as many rings as she can fit in her palm.

Hibari turns around and sees her behind him in the armory. Kyoko tries to be very subtle about shoving her ring-filled hand in her shorts pocket. “Out,” he says, and then nods at her bare feet in the rubble. “This may not be Namimori, but I won’t have Nami High students getting injured regardless. _Out_ , Sasagawa,” he repeats when she doesn’t make a fast enough exit.

“Of course not, Hibari-san. You’re right. Here’s your… omelette?”

Kyoko passes him back his plate. The alarms are still going off inside the villa. Hibari might take the blame for busting in, but like hell anyone’s going to enforce a punishment against the Vongola Cloud Guardian. Kyoko peels off toward the gazebo in the yard, already connecting to Dino’s wifi (password: buckinghorse420) and searching yoga routines on youtube. As Dino’s men begin to scramble into the yard, intent on discovering the breach, Kyoko props her phone on a bench, sits down on the stone floor of the gazebo, and starts the day as she suspects any good mafiosa should:

With a little bit of peace and quiet, punctuated by the dulcet tones of men in suits who oppose her goals getting the shit kicked out of them.


End file.
